I have a Gateway 4530GZ laptop that has no backlight. the screen went black about one week after the warranty expired and of course gateway wanted me to jump thru hoops and pay a fortune to see IF it could be fixed. this was my son's computer, he gave it to me and bought a new one. The laptop is about 5 years old now I think but was only used for two of those years. it has been in a closet since january 2006. I didn't get it fixed then but now that my very old desktop is about to die I would like to get this laptop fixed. I have read several different blogs and forums on fixing laptops and they all give very good instruction on how and what needs fixed so I was able to deduce that the backlight was not getting power. this was especially easy since I did find a cable that was not plugged into anything. i believe it is the cable that goes to the inverter for the backlight. so I got that far but would you believe that I cannot seem to find the inverter anywhere? all of the postings that I read were for different brands of laptops and included some gateways but not the model that I have. the inverter seemed to be in about the same place on the other laptops according to the directions and pictures that were shown. I know this is a totally 'dumb' question, but can anyone tell me where this stupid inverter thing is on this gateway laptop? if it's there they have it well hidden or it could be that it's staring me right in the face and I don't see it. I really do hope someone can guide me and help me with this. I know it's just a simple fix and I don't want to spend a fortune to have someone else fix it. thank you for reading and thanks to whoever comes to my rescue

hi and thanks for the assistance. I have taken just about the whole laptop apart looking for the inverter and I cannot see anyplace where it might be or where it should be. On one of the help tutorials the person worked on a Gateway 450ROG. This was the only thing close to the Gateway 4530GZ so I followed the instructions thinking both Gateway laptops would be somewhat close in design. So I took out the keyboard bezel, and the keyboard because the invertor should have been right there under the top front of the keyboard but it wasn't. I did find a couple more tutorials one for Dell and in fact I believe the other may have been yours on the Sony, good piece by the way.

I did take apart the display but I don't see any place where the inverter should be there either. on the bottom side of the LCD, (the side that fits closet to the keyboard, ) is where this little connector and wire comes out. It was out about 2". it is a thin black wire and a thin white wire with a small plastic connector at the end, the connector almost looks like an electrical appliance plug. there is no obvious place where this came unplugged from.

the other wiring that comes from the screen has the red, green, yellow,black and white wires and this is plugged in at the left upper most side right under the hinge. the other connector could not possibly reach this far if there was even a place to connect it.

this comes out from the right side (when facing the screen) to the bottom middle of the screen. there is nothing under or inside the lcd screen or the keyboard area or even on the bottom of the laptop. I have that apart too. I'm sure I'll have a blast getting all this back together. : )

at any rate, I think that my son and/or one of his friends probably unplugged this thing from somewhere when they "took a look at it". neither of them can remember where it was plugged in at though. nor can the friend that I took it too. everyone has looked and looked and we find nothing, Gateway is no help as of yet. I emailed the tech support and haven't received any info yet. I haven't found any support documents for this either except the description that this is the gateway intel chipset whatever.

does any of this make sense? I'm not going to give up on this thing until I find that daXXX inverter. I even looked one up on Ebay just to see what it looked like thinking it would help me pinpoint a little easier where it was located on the laptop but.....

any insight is much appreciated.

T hi and thanks for the assistance. I have taken just about the whole laptop apart looking for the inverter and I cannot see anyplace where it might be or where it should be. On one of the help tutorials the person worked on a Gateway 450ROG. This was the only thing close to the Gateway 4530GZ so I followed the instructions thinking both Gateway laptops would be somewhat close in design. So I took out the keyboard bezel, and the keyboard because the invertor should have been right there under the top front of the keyboard but it wasn't. I did find a couple more tutorials one for Dell and in fact I believe the other may have been yours on the Sony, good piece by the way.
I did take apart the display but I don't see any place where the inverter should be there either. on the bottom side of the LCD, (the side that fits closet to the keyboard, ) is where this little connector and wire comes out. It was out about 2". it is a thin black wire and a thin white wire with a small plastic connector at the end, the connector almost looks like an electrical appliance plug. there is no obvious place where this came unplugged from.
the other wiring that comes from the screen has the red, green, yellow,black and white wires and this is plugged in at the left upper most side right under the hinge. the other connector could not possibly reach this far if there was even a place to connect it.
this comes out from the right side (when facing the screen) to the bottom middle of the screen. there is nothing under or inside the lcd screen or the keyboard area or even on the bottom of the laptop. I have that apart too. I'm sure I'll have a blast getting all this back together. : )
at any rate, I think that my son and/or one of his friends probably unplugged this thing from somewhere when they "took a look at it". neither of them can remember where it was plugged in at though. nor can the friend that I took it too. everyone has looked and looked and we find nothing, Gateway is no help as of yet. I emailed the tech support and haven't received any info yet. I haven't found any support documents for this either except the description that this is the gateway intel chipset whatever.
does any of this make sense? I'm not going to give up on this thing until I find that daXXX inverter. I even looked one up on Ebay just to see what it looked like thinking it would help me pinpoint a little easier where it was located on the laptop but.....
any insight is much appreciated.
T

Let me start out by saying that I don't know this model specifically. You stated that you have taken this thing apart and looked in several locations for the inverter but you didn't tell us what locations you checked. How about in the display panel itself. I did a Sony laptop and found the inverter in the display panel itself just underneath the LCD screen. Have to be very careful with the LCD when taking these apart. Have you checked there yet? If it's not there, you may have to separate the lower half of the machine and get to the mother board area. Its the only other place it could be. The wires to the inverter are not usually a flat ribbon cable type of connection. They should be more like two to four thicker wires in one connector.

Let me start out by saying that I don't know this model specifically. You stated that you have taken this thing apart and looked in several locations for the inverter but you didn't tell us what locations you checked. How about in the display panel itself. I did a Sony laptop and found the inverter in the display panel itself just underneath the LCD screen. Have to be very careful with the LCD when taking these apart. Have you checked there yet? If it's not there, you may have to separate the lower half of the machine and get to the mother board area. Its the only other place it could be. The wires to the inverter are not usually a flat ribbon cable type of connection. They should be more like two to four thicker wires in one connector.